The ancient murrelet (Synthliboramphus antiquus) is a bird in the auk family. It breeds from the Yellow Sea (islands off China), through the Russian Pacific coast and the Aleutian Islands to the Haida Gwaii archipelago of British Columbia, where about half of the world population breeds.There are two listed subspecies:S. a. antiquus – (Gmelin, 1789): northeast Asia, Aleutian Islands to western Canada.S. a.